Opening: Tiago Almeida: Memories of the Past That Hug Me in a Nest

Institute of Contemporary Art Santa Fe presents Memories of the Past That Hug Me in a Nest, a solo exhibition by Tiago Almeida, on view June 14 through July 26, 2026.

A documentary filmmaker, artist, activist, and initiate of Candomblé, an Afro-Brazilian spiritual tradition, Tiago Almeida’s work traces enduring African traditions in Brazil, exploring Black sovereignty and the historical continuities that shape the present.

In Memories of the Past That Hug Me in a Nest, Almeida brings together installation, photography, and documentary film to engage the intertwined histories of the coffee plantations of the Vale do Café and the forced displacement and labor of enslaved Africans. The exhibition examines how Candomblé has carried African cosmologies forward through community, ceremony, and systems of knowledge, while tracing the ongoing suppression of African-matrix practices.

Rather than approaching these histories as fixed or resolved, Almeida considers how spiritual and ancestral frameworks fold time, keeping past and present in active relation. His work examines how knowledge persists under conditions of erasure, moving through forms that are at once visible and withheld.

Ongoing public engagement extends these inquiries through workshops and gatherings led by Almeida and conversations with invited guests, including activations of the installation (feeding the exhibition) and a workshop titled Against the Chaos. The installation moves between the formal conditions of ritual and art. Visitors are invited to stand at a threshold to witness and learn, while remaining aware of the limits of their own access.